Sorina Soare Bulgaria, which formerly belonged to the Communist bloc, entered the EU in 2007. Nevertheless, compared to the other countries of the former Warsaw Pact, the Bulgarian process of European integration was carried out with 3 years of delay; as demonstrated by Noucheva and Bechev (2008), the reasons Bulgaria as well as Romania lagged behind in meeting the EU accession criteria had to do with a set of domestic factors linked to a tortuous democratization process, with relevant veto players and institutional structures that obstructed democratic and market reforms for almost a decade. Despite the acceleration of political and...

Luana Russo France went to the polls on Sunday 25th May. France elected 74 MEPs (two more than in 2009) using a proportional system with a 5% electoral threshold and closed lists. Political parties establish the order of candidates on the lists; voters can only cast a vote for the list and not for individual candidates. Seats are thus attributed according to the order in which the candidates are presented on the list. The national territory is divided up into eight constituencies (including one for all of the overseas territories). The election campaign In France, as in several other European countries (e.g....

Laura Sudulich On Thursday the 22nd of May citizens in the Netherlands and the UK voted to elect national delegates to the next European Parliament. Irish citizens voted on the following day, Friday the 23rd. In the UK the electoral system in use is a closed list system with regional districts. In the Netherlands the system is ordered (belonging to the group of open list systems) and there is one constituency for the whole country to choose the 26 MEPs (one more than in 2009). Irish voters elected their 11 MEPs (one less than in 2009) through PR-STV, a proportional...